Trump's Long-winded Speech

Ignores the State of a Faltering Union

The Checks & Balances are Failing: John Thune's Senate is Failing, Mike Johnson's House of Representatives is Failing, the Courts have Faltered, but not yet Failed & Billionaire TV News is Failing the Public

February 26, 2026 / Government Media & Politics / U.S. Politics National News NYC / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz.

I don't have the time to do Trump's State of the Union true justice. But I can't sit by and say nothing, as TV News has already done a good job of saying a lot of nothing, that's worthy of note.

Trump, spent two hours, delivering his same, old, tired, manipulative, bigoted trash, peppered with so many falsehoods, deceits and outright lies, that even PBS had trouble keeping up with them. And the failed billionaire controlled TV News networks didn't even try.

State of the Union 2026

Trump's Address was Riddled with Key Omissions

What Trump Didn't Talk about, is at Least as Important as What he Did Talk About

There wasn't anything new, worth noting in Trump's State of the Union [aka SOTU] speech except the new people and faces he used to try to direct attention away from, that:

1) Donald J. Trump's name reportedly appears hundreds of thousands of times, in the unredacted Epstein pedo-files,

2) little progress made on the economy - unless you believe his Fox News style distortions,

3) little achieved on healthcare as the erection of a website selling prescription drugs, reportedly doesn't make much difference to Americans who buy rx drugs [stock prices of drug companies went up after Donald J. Trump told them how he was 'cracking down' on them],

4) DOGE failed to reduce spending and that prior to Trump becoming president again, there wasn't the 'corruption, waste and abuse' Trump claimed, but by the time Trump leaves office, he will be primarily responsible for about a third to a half of America's $40+ trillion of debt which has been dumped [in multiple acts of cowardice by Republican Presidents and the Republican Party] on America's children and unborns in order to further enrich some of the richest people on the planet,

5) a couple of Hispanic Americans from Texas, working for ICE, put ten bullets [looked like murder] in a white citizen and resident of Minnesota in his own neighborhood as he was helping a woman protester the ICE agents had pushed to the ground, nor about the shooting [looked like murder] of Renee Macklin Goode, also a naturalized white American citizen from Minneapolis, nor numerous other deaths, as well as beatings and pepper spraying of other American citizens and immigrants - both legal and illegal - who have suffered at the hands of Kristi Noem's ICE agency,

6) the bombings by Pete Hegseth's Department of War of fishing boats in the Caribbean and Pacific in what also looked like the murder of innocents and a war crime,

7) the incredible turbulence in the stock market, the volatility of which Trump and members of his Administration appeared to trade on, with Inside information, due to Trump's erratic decisions regarding tariffs on / off / up / down statements,

8) Trump and Republicans included a statute prohibiting states from exercising their rights on limiting the encroachment of AI into everything,

9) little done vis-a-vis China,

10) Trump and Little Marco Rubio have been betraying Ukraine and Europe vis-a-vis the Russians [Bill Gates admitted to some Russian co-mingling and yet Donald J. Trump denies he did anything - not unlike how he denied raping E. Jean Carroll, the Democratic Hoax Epstein pedo-files, money laundering at his casinos, cheating his workers and contractors out of their pay, inciting the January 6th Insurrection, and so forth,

11) Trump has turned back the clock on slowing or preventing the impending crisis soon coming from Climate Change with the last few years being the warmest and driest on human record,

12) the real intent of his Voter ID legislation which is to disenfranchise women [because of marriage name changes] and the poor [no car = no driver's license] nor that voting fraud by illegals is essentially ZERO even according the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation,

13) he lied a blue streak about how 'great' things are in the American economy since he took office,

14) his Administration is [possible to very likely?] becoming the most corrupt in American history, which includes insider trading, personal use of government property by numerous cabinet members, accepting bribes for U.S. taxpayer funded military technology secrets or equipment, real estate deals done with the possibly bribing nations, crypto corruption, suing the IRS for $10 billion,

15) he's been pardoning numerous criminals, not unlike himself and

16) why he seems to be planning to start a war with Iran.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our report about all of the important issues Donald J. Trump's State of the Union Speech 2026 didn't address.

ICE Shoots & Kills a Second U.S. Citizen in Minneapolis

Is Trump's ICE, Recruiting Deviants who Commit Violent Crimes Against the American Public, in Order to Make All Americans Submit to Trump's Will?

January 24, 2026 / U.S. National Issues / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz.

Does Donald Trump really expect us to believe that ICE is protecting us, when they are shooting and killing U.S. citizens?

Editor's Note. Please note that ICE agents do not appear to be as well trained, or as disciplined as other law enforcement personnel in the U.S. Furthermore, since Trump took office, it has been reported that ICE recruiting practices are failing to properly screen and background check their applicants, some or even many of whose backgrounds should raise red flags such as affiliations with white supremacist groups such as the KKK and Nazis. ICE reportedly puts these new recruits on the streets without full training by historical norms. And under Trump, ICE leadership appears to employ legally questionable practices in dealing with the public using questionable home search entry practices as well as spraying chemical agents in peaceful protesters faces. For details see this 6 minute video on CBC.

You're not likely to find this on TV News, whose news teams read the billionaires' teleprompter-fed narratives, while modeling the news distractions, instead of doing the hard work of investigatining, analyzing and presenting the real news.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.7059189?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

LINK

All state and municipal governments should protect their citizens from ICE, who frequently resemble thugs in viral videos, by requiring no masks for any law enforcement without a court order, body cameras worn at all times, and must be turned on for any interactions with the public or targets, and published guidelines, on when beating, spraying and shooting to kill American citizens is permitted, as we saw ICE agents do to Alex Pretti in the video - click on graphic below or at right.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/minute-minute-timeline-fatal-shooting-alex-pretti-federal/story?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dhfacebook&utm_content=null&id=129547199

• CLICK here to read our report about Alex Pretti Shooting in Minneapolis & Donald Trump's Psychological Tendencies Toward Violence.

Mamdani Mayoral Inauguration Day, as Seen from the Nosebleeds

The Bitter Cold didn't Nip the Warmth of Our New Mayor on his Big Day

January 1, 2026 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Things To Do Events / Gotham Buzz NYC.

I'll be the first to admit that the photos shown herein, aren't likely to win any awards. But I never take photographs or write reports to win awards. I take and write them to share with our readers what's going on in our fair city, as seen by one of their own - a fellow member of the plebeian citizenry of NYC. And I also report on things, with an eye toward posterity.

In the photo at right, Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji are shown walking out of City Hall and onto the steps of the political public stage on January 1, 2026. Mamdani was inaugurated privately, earlier in the day, by NYS Attorney General Letitia James. And he would be inaugurated again, cermoniously, by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, about an hour after this photo was taken.

As I was freezing my buns off in the bitter cold outside of City Hall, waiting for Mamdani to appear and give his speech, my thoughts matched the chilly bitterness of the season. The biting 20 mph+ wind gusts & the well below freezing temperatures, didn't thaw out my anger, as some long-winded speakers seemed to ignore the fact that this was Zohran's day - not theirs. And that those of us in attendance, had been waiting outside on the open streets of south Manhattan, with the biting winds coming in from the harbor, for hours.

Eventually my camera succumbed to the cold, as my battery, having been fully charged earlier this morning died. Thankfully, it was after I got a couple of photos of our new Mayor and his wife. I interpreted the battery dying, as god's invisible message, giving me permission to go home, before I froze to death.

In the photo above or at right you can see a number of well known, former and current, NYC and NYS government officials. Starting from the first row in the lower left corner, wearing a green coat is Governor Kathy Hochul, to her right is NYS Attorney General Letitia James, fashionably dressed in a camel-colored coat wearing a beret, to her right is U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in a dark coat and to her right are U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife. Above and just right of Sanders is former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is standing to the right of former Mayor Adams [his head is buried underneath a newsie cap] and his friend, Tracey Collins. U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, who did not endorse Mamdani, is on Adams' left.

I shambled to the subway station at City Hall, passing through the garrison of NYPD officers who were also enduring the piercing winds, and numbing and bone chilling cold. They seemed better dressed than I for the weather, as I'd not attended such a frigid, hours-long, outdoor event, since the January 5, 1985 NFL Playoff game between the NY Giants and Chicago Bears at Soldier Field in Chicago.

Today, at City Hall in NYC, it was 27 degrees, with 14 - 16 mph wind gusts, and a wind chill temperature that ranged from 8 - 18 degrees. As I had no cap, and nothing to break the wind from coming through my jacket and jersey, my arms and legs started shivering continuously, before I decided to go home.

On the subway my fingers and toes began to thaw. At first there was some pain as the blood started circulating through them, bringing back the warmth they had recently lost. The same thawing began to come over me mentally, as I pondered my own life on the ride home, as I thought about our new Mayor.

Zohran Mamdani's Inauguration Speech January 1, 2026 in Fotos

One of the things that struck me is that as Zohran is an immigrant, who was born on the other side of the world in Uganda, in Africa; he doesn't just see himself in the context of us 8.5 million New Yorkers who live here, nor does he limit his view of us collectively to the 342 million Americans we are, but rather sees us as a plantery whole of 8.3 billion Earthlings, of which NYC represents 1/10th of 1% of the planet population.

What Mamdani had to say and some context for it follows.

• CLICK here to view the rest of our report on the Inauguration of Zohan Mamdani at City Hall in NYC on January 1, 2026 including photos.

How did Steve Cohen's Casino License Bid Get this Far?

Did Billionaire Network TV News, Ignore Cohen's SAC Capital Insider Trading History, in Order to Enable the Fellow Billionaire to Keep Gaming Us & the System?

December 1, 2025 / NYC Business / NYC Politics & Government / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

SAC [Steve A. Cohen] Capital

Pleads Guilty to the Largest Insider Trading Scandal in Modern History

The short story on Steve Cohen is that in 1992 he founded a company that operated a number of hedge funds. He was so proud of it, that he put his name on it - SAC Capital - which is short for Steve A. Cohen Capital. Fast forward less than 20 years to 2010 and the SEC is investigating SAC Capital associates for insider trading. Fast forward another three years and SAC Capital has paid $1.8 billion and has pleaded guilty to insider-trading charges. It's one of the biggest insider trading scandals in modern history and the largest involving a hedge fund.

For details on the Steven A. Cohen Capital Insider Trading case see -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.A.C._Capital_Advisors

Did Cohen Foster a Culture of Corruption at SAC?

Cohen himself never personally pleaded guilty, in part because it's difficult to prove scienter - which is a legal term for intent or knowledge of wrongdoing. But that said, the Steve A. Cohen Capital firm, was founded by and run by Cohen for 20 years. And one of Cohen's high school chums, Michael Steinberg, became one of SAC's most senior portfolio managers. Steinberg was cited by one of his analysts, Horvath, as essentially telling Horvath to seek out non-public information, that they could trade on, which in essence is insider trading.

And while the Steven A. Cohen Capital firm says they take compliance with regulations seriously, a report by American University Business Law Review notes that SAC refused to give them even one example of its refusal to hire someone because of compliance concerns. On the other hand, the Steven A. Cohen Capital firm did hire people, such as Richard S. Lee, who was known to be a risk, as he had just been fired by a Chicago firm for altering his holdings in their accounting system on his first day on the job. Even SAC Capital Legal had reportedly advised against hiring him. Lee eventually ended up as one of the firm's employees who was convicted.

For further details on Cohen's alleged malfeasance use the following links.

https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1071&context=aublr

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hedge-fund-manager-steven-cohen-settles-with-commodities-agency

• CLICK here for the rest of the story, including Cohen's management of the NY Mets - How did Steve Cohen of SAC Capital get Awarded a License for Metropolitan Park Casino Queens?

New York City News - Local NYC News Updates

April 16, 2026 / Billionaire Press NYC Billionaire TV News / NYC Politics / New York City News / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our New York City News _ Local NYC News Updates.

*** What Follows was posted Week Ending 4.16.26

Stay Tuned. Updates coming soon.

Mamdani - 100 days

Special Election Begins April 18, 2026 in District 3 in Manhattan

Trump's Flim Flam Man Tax Breaks - Parade Candy in Exchange for a 2nd Mortgage on American's Futures via $3.5 TRILLION more in Federal Government Debt

Is former NYC Mayor, Crypto Eric Adams, Plotting to Flee his Alleged Crimes by Fleeing the U.S.?

New York City News - UN & National News Weekly Updates

April 16, 2026 / Billionaire Press NYC Billionaire TV News / NYC Politics / New York City News / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz NYC.

• CLICK here to read the rest of our New York City News _ UN & National News Updates NYC.

*** What Follows was posted Week Ending 4.16.26

Stay Tuned. Updates coming soon.

Is Trump Talking up the Stock Markets via Lies on Network TV News?

What Happened to AG Bondi Testifying on her Handling of the Epstein Files?

Is the Republican Party, by Their Inaction, a Party the Trump Administration's Corruption?

Billionaires are Rapidly Changing TV News & Not in a Good Way

Billionaires are Amassing a Huge Concentration of Mass Media Assets, in What Appears to be the Privately Owned Propaganda Press

September 18, 2025 / New York City News / NYC Billionaire Press Billionaire TV News & Free Speech in America / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz.

All six TV Networks are controlled by billionaires [or folks whose wealth rounds up to billionaires or are members of billionaire families]. Increasingly they appear to be turning the TV networks into privately controlled propaganda machines. Too often they appear to resemble Rupert Murdoch's mistreatment of the truth in the news. This means they seem to omit key facts and even entire stories from view, while amplifying falsehoods and outright lies spoken by politicians and their teleprompter readers alike, which go uncorrected, leaving those who still trust Network TV News, ignorant and in the dark as to what's really going on in this country.

Network TV News Corps Appear to be Trading Journalistic Integrity for Media Market Share so they can Price More Aggressively. America Beware, as they will have Even More Influence over what you / we Americans see, hear & think.

Colbert was cancelled by CBS and numerous seasoned journalists departed for journalistic integrity reasons. CBS appeared to be compromising their integrity, as Colbert is the top rated show in the time period. But Trump doesn't like Colbert, and CBS had a merger deal that needed to be approved by the Trump Justice Department and FCC, so poof, Colbert cancelled. CBS denies this reasoning, saying they have other [unannounced] plans.

Disney / ABC paid off Trump in a lawsuit many attorneys were sure they could have easily won. And this week Disney / ABC took the Jimmy Kimmel Show off the air for making an opinionated comment of which Trump didn't approve, on the Kirk assassination shooter. Kimmel had joked that the shooter was a MAGA Republican which he does not appear to be, although reportedly the rest of his family is.

The alleged shooter was reportedly in a relationship with someone working through gender identity issues, which is just one of the many important issues of our day, that billionaire TV News repeatedly fails to fully inform upon. This link will take you to the Metropolitan Museum website, of a past photo exhibit, wherein in the mid 1800's a French photographer documented a hermaphrodite, which is someone with both male and female genitalia. That's a fact, that I have NEVER seen raised nor discussed by the flunkies on TV News, who don't seem to be knowledgeable about the world around them, and definitely far too often, just simply do not do their basic homework on important issues.

And the sad thing is that this translates to an increasingly ignorant American public, as up until this year TV was the dominant news source. This year news on the web FINALLY passed TV News, and I am hoping that that trend will accelerate as more Americans start paying attention to how badly TV News fails them, daily.

If you decide to click this link you'll encounter what is likely a shocker to most folks [was to me the first time I saw it at the Metropolitan Museum exhibit in the late 1990's]. But the idea isn't to shock, but rather to instruct - Metropolitan Museum photo exhibit by Nadar of hermaphrodite.

• CLICK to view the rest of this report about how the NYC billionaire press is taking over free speech in America. GB.

NYC Mayoral Race Polls & Election 2025

This Section is Dedicated to Presenting the Candidates, Issues, Policy & Polls in this Upcoming NYC Mayoral Election

Updated September 21, 2025 / Started July 14, 2025 / Bastille Day / New York NY / NYC Mayoral Race Polls & Election 2025 / News Analysis & Opinion / Gotham Buzz.

This Section is dedicated to trying to present our audience with the candidates, policy, issues and polls, so that they may make an informed decison in the voting booth in the upcoming NYC Mayoral election.

This will be a running commentary that will soon get started and run through the election, and then morphing into a political effort beyond. Stay tuned. If you're interested in the 2025 Mayoral Race, you will likely find this section of great interest, as in it you'll encounter many important background stories that billionaire TV News is either unaware of, doesn't care about, or ignores because they don't seem capable of or interested in doto do real / hard news any more.

• CLICK here for reports on the NYC Mayoral Race Polls Election / Mayors Race NYC 2025.

Local & National [Primarily Web] News Sources we Currently Trust

Updated 8.20.25 v. 7.7.25 Update / Opinion / Work in Progress

We've entered The Disinformation Age. Much of the mass media is controlled by billionaires, especially TV assets. They changed the FCC laws so they are no longer required to behave ethically, accurately and so the billionaire press does what it does best, pursues profits regardless of community collateral damage. They're only sharing information that they want you to know. They omit key facts they don't want you to know or even entirely ignore important stories that may embarass their billionaire friends. They try to manipulate viewers' perceptions in order to get them to vote for candidates representing the billionaires' interests, and provide open mics to the candidates their choice - not fact checked - even when these pols are making numerous false or misleading statements.

Trusted Web News Sources - Gotham Buzz

Updated 8.20.25 v. 6.20.25 _ Currently Recommended News Sources to Help You Wean Yourself from Servile Dependence on Billioniare TV News.

For local NYC / NYS news we currently find ourselves using The City, Politico, Axios, Vox, Wikipedia, the Gotham Gazette, Gothamist and City & State. Also NPR and PBS. Note that we will continue to revisit this section and continue developing this list of local, state and national news sources sometime in the not-too-distant future.

For national news we find ourselves using many of the above sources, as well as Mother Jones, Wired, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the browser Firefox curates a fair news offering, finance.yahoo.com is good for business news, and moderated social media outlets like BSky.app has an intelligent, highly skilled audience that does a fair job of identifying key news reports. The search engines are also useful for fact checking and doing further research into issues, people and other things. Collectively these news sources should enable you to effectively do your civic duty to inform yourself about people and issues before voting.

The NON-Billionaire TV News that we currently find reliable, includes left-leaning Democracy Now [on FNX & CUNY TV], PBS News Hour, and PBS Documentaries are also very informative. The Washington Post and New York Times are still fairly reliable, but sadly, not as implicitly as I found them to be in the past. Both the NYT and Wapo have undergone ownership / top management changes within the past six years. And the new management teams' values appear to differ from their predecessors, so pay attention to editorial changes / impacts.

I no longer find any of the Network TV News outlets to be even remotely close to being sufficiently informative. And far, far too often I find them to be misleading and parlayers of false information. I doubt they ever were really up to the job, but back in the day, they used the newspaper reporting to help keep them informed. Here again, newspaper journalism may not be dead, but it's very financially challenged and isn't remotely close to what it once was due to constained financials. But that said, you can still pick up a few leads from TV News, which you can then use to more fully inform yourself, by doing further research on the internet.

• CLICK here to view our list of trusted news sources on the web for local politics and news in NYC and for national politics and news in the USA.

Mothers Day Restaurants in NYC 2025

A Day to Honor Those who Carried and Birthed Us, & So Much More

May 9, 2025 / NYC Neighborhoods / NYC Restaurants / Gotham Buzz NYC.

NYC Weather. Expect over a half inch of rain Friday, winding down about 6 pm and then dry for the rest of the weekend. The temperature highs will start around 60 on Friday, rising to the low 70's on Saturday and rising again to the high 70's on Sunday. The temperature lows will be in the mid 50's all weekend. The winds will range from 5 - 10 mph on Friday and Sunday, rising to 10 - 15 mph on Saturday. The humidity will start around 80% on Friday, falling to 50% on Saturday and then 40% on Sunday.

Also see our front page for other things to do this Mothers Day weekend.

We posted a number of different reports, one for each borough, each of which provides a wide range of Mothers Day restaurant suggestions. We try to identify restaurants with unique ambiance, savory dining and / or favorable prices that are open and ready to accommodate families on Mothers Day.

• CLICK here for a brief report and links to NYC Mothers Day restaurants - all 5 boros Manhattan Brooklyn Queens Bronx & Staten Island - Moms Day Brunches NYC.

NYC Restaurants - New York City

Cafes, Bars, Diners & Restaurants NYC

March 25, 2026 / NYC Restaurants / Gotham Buzz NYC.

This section includes a selection of NYC restaurants in all five boroughs for holidays, as well as some reviews. More restaurant reviews may be found in the restaurant section of each borough site.

Click here to view the NYC Restaurants NYC section including reviews of the restaurants in metro NYC.

Staten Neighborhoods & News Shorts

April 7, 2026 / Staten Island Neighborhoods & History / Staten Island Arts & Culture NYC / Staten Island News NYC / News Analysis & Opinion / Staten Buzz NYC.

Saturday, October 11, 2025 from 6 pm to 11 pm [Show starts 8 pm] - Oktoberfest at Killmeyers Tavern - at 4254 Arthur Kill Road in Clay Pits Pond State Park on Staten Island. A celebration of Bavarian food, music and culture at an old time Bavarian bar and biergarten. For details see - WS - https://killmeyers.com or FB - https://www.facebook.com/killmeyers

Saturday & Sunday, October 11 & 12, 2025 from 12 noon - 6 Saturday - 15th Anniversary Fall Festival and Italian Exotic Car Show - at Case Belvedere at 79 Howard Avenue in the Silver Lake neighborhood near Grymes Hill and just south of Tompkinsville on Staten Island. The event features luxurious, classic and performance Italian autos on the lawn, along with Italian food and drink, and live entertainment. This is a Staten Island festival more than a street fair in Silver Lake near the Grymes Hill and Tompkinsville neighborhoods of Staten Island. See Casa Belvedere Italian Cultural Foundation for details. Admission $10. Kids under 12 free. For details see - WS - https://casa-belvedere.org/ or FB - https://www.facebook.com/casabelvederesi

The photo above or at right was taken from Casa Belvedere in Silver Lake / Grymes Hill a few years ago at a prior classic car show. The car show returns this weekend.

CLICK here to read the rest of our report containing New York City Neighborhood News Briefs for 2025.

City of Yes - Special Report Series Section